Korean aircraft lessor Solyu orders 50 SkyDrive eVTOL Aircraft

Solyu has pre-ordered up to 50 Sky­Drive three-seater eVTOL air­craft, which is cur­rent­ly in the process of acquir­ing Japan Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau (JCAB) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Solyu is run by a team with decades of expe­ri­ence in the air­craft leas­ing and finance indus­try with a focus on pro­vid­ing cus­tomers with zero emis­sions elec­tric air vehi­cles.

In Korea, the met­ro­pol­i­tan area faces a prob­lem of severe traf­fic con­ges­tion, and the gov­ern­ment formed the Korea Urban Air Mobil­i­ty (K‑UAM) Roadmap, expect­ing that the time and social costs can be reduced by 70%.

The gov­ern­ment also pro­motes a plan for a pub­lic-pri­vate joint demon­stra­tion project, the K‑UAM Grand Chal­lenge. Solyu believes it is impor­tant to pro­mote the use of elec­tric, zero-emis­sion vehi­cles in Korea to accel­er­ate the K‑UAM goal and agreed on the pre-order of Sky­Drive eVTOL.

Sky­Drive and Solyu con­tin­ue to eval­u­ate com­mer­cial eVTOL projects such as ver­ti­ports, routes, infra­struc­ture require­ments and ecosys­tems, with the Kore­an gov­ern­ment and oth­er inter­est­ed stake­hold­ers to launch new mobil­i­ty solu­tions in Korea.

Solyu pres­i­dent Andrew Claer­bout com­ment­ed: “The eVTOL mar­ket will bring oppor­tu­ni­ties for reduc­ing glob­al emis­sions and improv­ing trav­eller con­ve­nience. We are hon­oured to work with Sky­Drive and the award-win­ning SD-05 to devel­op this glob­al mar­ket.”

Sky­Drive CEO Tomo­hi­ro Fukuza­wa added: “We are pleased to have received a pre-order in Korea fol­low­ing Viet­nam and the U.S. This is the first pre­order from a leas­ing com­pa­ny, and we are very grate­ful to be able to pro­ceed with the Solyu team with its exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the air­craft leas­ing indus­try.

“We look for­ward to work­ing with Solyu to open up the Kore­an mar­ket and con­tribute the goal of reduc­ing CO2 emis­sions in the Kore­an avi­a­tion sec­tor.”

The Sky­Drive eVTOL is a three-seat, elec­tri­cal­ly-pow­ered light­weight air­craft with ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing capa­bil­i­ties. Flown by a pilot, its flight sta­bil­i­ty is enhanced with a fly-by-wire con­trol sys­tem. It is being devel­oped with a vision to realise a world where they are used in dai­ly life for air mobil­i­ty much as auto­mo­biles are used for dai­ly ground trans­porta­tion.

Last week, Evi­a­tion Air­craft announced that Solyu signed a let­ter of intent for 25 com­muter Alice air­craft with options for 25 addi­tion­al air­craft, stat­ing that its order book has now sur­passed $5 bil­lion.